


sometimes (you) just rush

by Archistratego



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Fanfiction of Fanfiction, M/M, Tragedy, i'm terrible at tags, please go read sunblind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 09:59:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15240918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archistratego/pseuds/Archistratego
Summary: Recovery from the divine has its own prize. Icarus without Apollo aches as he comes to terms with loss.





	sometimes (you) just rush

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ibuzoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibuzoo/gifts).



> For [ibuzoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibuzoo/pseuds/ibuzoo)! Please go read Sunblind and Sunchoked, they're absolutely heartwrenching and wonderful. You can check more of ibuzoo's work at her tumblr [here](http://ibuzoo.tumblr.com) and if you enjoyed this feel free to follow my writing tumblr at [pushkins](http://pushkins.tumblr.com/tagged/x). Thank you for reading!

Happiness is such a foreign feeling that he’s unable to accept its existence. Icarus thinks happiness is this: quiet mornings by the sea with Apollo tracing his wings over and over. He thinks happiness might be lying over a canvass dripping gold. He thinks happiness might be blindly plunging into the sea with the sun keeping watch above.

His father once told him: forget those who don’t inspire your love.

But the question Icarus asks is this: If a God loves you, how do you forget?

Do you strip your flesh, hallowing out your insides until the memory leaves?

Sell every tender kiss exchanged beneath cigarette-scented sheets?

 

* * *

 

There is a fondness found through retrospection; Icarus finds himself prey to it often enough. Missing the gold-stained fingers leaving imprints on his skin: possessive, a communion with the divine. How difficult it is to live like this, cut off from Gods — in free fall, the expanse of dark blue stretching for miles.

And there are times bad memories make him want to spill his insides; oozing bile and smoke, thick and staining black the white tiles of his bathroom.

Icarus waits this one out, nausea receding — he thinks this is what death sounds like.

The memory is catching up to him, tender with teeth, and Icarus holds on eschewing the urge to seek Apollo out. A stream of white noise penetrating eardrums until it reaches the base of his skull, keeping track of the hours.

His father doesn’t understand.

 

* * *

 

Icarus sees Cassandra at Troy; the club lights hollowing out her features until her face is a skull bathed in neon, her white dress a shroud undulating beneath the waves of music.

They say Cassandra went to sleep one night and awoke to Apollo knocking on her window — she promised him a kiss and instead bestowed it on Artemis. She said ‘this is not for you’ and Apollo has not forgotten or forgiven.

Her skin is clammy, fingers fishbone small curling gently around Icarus’ wrist. “Since you can’t fly won’t you dance?”

His shoulder blades burn, their scarring itching all the way to the bone, then the sensation seeping deep into his marrow. Icarus thinks of red ants climbing up and down underneath his skin. Every now and then one snaps its pincers around a nerve and he jerks like a marionette.

Her question hurts more than it should. There are no hidden blades in Casandra’s words; they hold a clinical kind of curiosity — a witness without conviction because she knows Apollo.

She’s neither human nor divine but something snuggled neatly in-between. Mortality hadn’t suited Cassandra, so she became more; the decision taken a little too late into the night between one shot of tequila and one of vodka.

“No.” She answers the question after searching his eyes. Icarus is grateful because if he speaks his voice might rise above the music, textured, broken. “I guess not.”

Cassandra continues undeterred, “And if I request a dance? Apollo comes by sometimes.”

And Icarus has never moved so fast, bumping into Ganymede as he escapes; leaving his heart behind for Cassandra to poke at.

He makes sure never to enter Troy again.

 

* * *

 

Shedding suffering is like peeling skin in stripped lines before dipping into the sea. The salt burns till stars are visible in your eyes, and then it ebbs into nothing your flesh curated, inoculated against further assault.

 

* * *

 

 

Icarus is close to dismantling whatever he builds, his grades precariously close to failure, and then what would his father say? Worse, what would that inner voice that sounded suspiciously like Apollo say?

This voice holds him hostage. He feels the odds are rigged against him, insurmountable, like swimming against the tide during the storm.

Apollo’s ghost sitting on his bed begging him in that familiar way, cocky grin and sunchoked eyes, _do you hate me? Won’t you call?_

“I miss you but I shouldn’t.”

From the living room his father asks who he is talking to.

“Nobody.” Icarus says, and his tongue swells with the lie. There are no follow-up questions, and Icarus banishes the hollow memory. _It’s over. Go away._

This becomes his prayer every morning and every night, during lectures, and at the beach until it sinks. Till hurt loosens it’s grasp.

And then it is Icarus’ own voice that holds him hostage.

That’s better he hopes.

 


End file.
